history as it is made – one day at a time: "1915 – The Death of Innocence" (Lyn Macdonald)

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Category Archives: Epidemics

BORN TODAY, in Resende, Portugal – Edgar Cardoso, builder of bridges (literally, not metaphorically) on three continents across the Portuguese (ex) empire, including: Angola, Portuguese Guinea (now Guinea Bissau) and Mozambique in Africa; Macau and India in Asia; and of course in Portugal.

First Balkan War: The Bulgarian town of Silistra is awarded to Romania as part of the settlement.

First Balkan War: With the arrival of the Greek Army, the Island of Samos becomes a part of Greece, liberated from Ottoman Turkish rule.

World Affairs: US soldiers accidentally invade Mexico when they pursue Mexican Army troops after a border skirmish in Douglas, Arizona.

Women’s suffrage: in St Petersburg, Imperial Russia’s capital, Russian women observe their first International Women’s Day, demonstrating for the right to vote.

Public Health: The “Tombstone Epitaph” in Arizona, USA, reports a “Spinal meningitis epidemic in Bisbee” with the sub-headline “Much alarm felt at Big Copper Camp – all public places and schools ordered closed”.

Society and culture: Mr Karl Behr marries Miss Helen Newsom at the Church of the Transfiguration in New York City. Both are survivors of the Titanic Disaster which took place a little under one year ago.

Shipping news: The British steamer Calvados, with 200 passengers and crew, is lost in the Sea of Marmara.

Science and technology: In the UK, the Cornish Institute of Mining, Mechanical and Metallurgical Engineers (later simplified to the Cornish Institute of Engineers) appoints its first ever President, Josiah Paul.

Sport: In Paris, the International Lawn Tennis Federation is founded at a general conference, with 13 nations becoming the inaugural members. Meanwhile in an “Entente Cordiale” football match, Paris are hosts against a team from Surrey (UK). [ The French and the English are being nicer and nicer to each other as they fret more and more about what their close neighbors, the Germans, are up to].

Society and Culture: on Australian Navy Foundation Day’s 12th anniversary, the Royal Australian Naval College is founded at Osborne House, North Geelong, Victoria.

The Hobart Mercury (Tasmania) reports a serious outbreak of the influenza epidemic, particularly “among the half-castes” on Cape Barren Island.

BORN TODAY, in Ohio, USA – Ross Rocklin (aka Ross Rocklynne), sci-fi author in the so called “Golden Age” of Science Fiction (1938 to 1946).

Human Rights: the State of Arkansas abolishes the practice of convict leasing. It will remain legal in Alabama until 1928 and will not be completely eradicated until World War 2. Matthew Mancini described this vicious labour system in his book “One Dies, Get Another – Convict Leasing in the American South, 1866-1928”.

Society and culture: In Choctaw County, Oklahoma, the “Fort Towson Enterprise” reports on the improving conditions after the recent smallpox epidemic in Hugo:

“There has been a great and decided change for the better in the smallpox situation, not only to Hugo but all over the county, the past week. Very few new cases have developed, and very few cases of varloloid, which would indicate that all cases are successfully quarantined and there is no chance, practically, for exposures. This is glad and welcome news to the people of the county. There has been a terrible fear, and justly, by the people of the county to visit Hugo the past few weeks, but the official report below given evidence of the disappearance of the dread malady”.

The official report then summarizes that only 33 deaths have occurred in Hugo in the last week, 14 white patients and 19 negroes.

Science & Technology: Meanwhile the “Athens Banner” from Atlanta, Georgia, reports on the innovative use of electric heating to bring forward the season for successfully hatching “electric hatched chicks”.